A great tool for homeschooling is the letterbox lesson. This is a type of lesson that goes through vowel correspondences (short a, long e, etc.) in a very systematic and explicit form. To teach these lessons to your child, you will need letterboxes, plastic letter tiles, word lists, and decodable stories. 

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Word lists should include 3-12 words that primarily focus on the vowel correspondence that will be taught. These words should all be one syllable, regular words, that do not consecutively rhyme. Words with previously learned correspondences should be included as well as words with digraphs and consonant clusters. These words should be organized by phoneme count. It is also a good idea to include a pseudoword (made-up word) to assess that the student has grasped the correspondence.Below is an example word list for the short o vowel correspondence:

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3-[jot, pox, cop], 4-[block, prong, cent, cross], 5-[strong, slept, frost, blond], 6-[prompt]

Pseudoword: bross

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First, students will spell each word from the word list with the plastic letter tiles. They will place them in the correct letter boxes depending on the word's phonemes. For example, a word like spring, there would be 5 letterboxes. The 1st box would contain the letter s, 2nd box would have the letter p, 3rd box would have r, 4th box would have i, and the 5th box would have n and g because this is considered one cohesive sound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have your student continue to spell the rest of the word list. After they have spelled all of these words, have them read the wordlist back to you. Once complete, provide child with a decodable text that reviews the learned correspondence. As the student reads provide scaffolding as needed. Click here to see how to scaffold oral reading. Conclude the lesson by giving your child a "message" and have them use inventive spelling to produce a response. See example below.